Episode 8: The Last Jedi Part 3

Skywalker Saga

The Shadows of the Past Trilogy

Episode 8: The Last Jedi Part 3

                Aboard Snoke’s flagship, the Supremacy, Phasma kneels before a holographic image of Snoke.  “The remnants of the Resistance Fleet have escaped through hyperspace, Supreme Leader.  The Fulminatrix was also destroyed.”  She then quickly adds, “However, the hyperspace tracking systems are functioning as expected.  We are following their trail through hyperspace.  They have only temporarily eluded us.”

                There is a moment of deadly silence.  Then Snoke says, “And Skywalker?”

                Phasma pauses.  It is clear she is bracing herself for his wrath.  “He has also escaped in the Millennium Falcon into a massive hurricane.  There is no way he could survive that storm.”

                Snoke allows another deadly pause before responding.  “Do not make the same mistakes as Hux, Phasma.  Do not underestimate the power of the Force.  Skywalker can do the miraculous.  He is not dead.  I would know it.  And as for Organa, the Force flows through her veins as well, though she is not as well-trained.  That is why we are struggling to destroy them.”  He then falls silent.

                To fill the void, Phasma looks up at his image.  “What would you have me do?”

                “There is only one thing that we can do,” replies Snoke.  “Skywalker will detain us here as long as he must, hiding in holes and slipping from shadow to shadow.  Because of Ren’s mistakes, Skywalker has been given the time he needed, and the vessel he needed, to escape with his artifacts.  While the war continues to rage all around us and the galaxy is quickly slipping through our fingers, we will continue to play cat-and-mouse with him.  No…we must lure Skywalker to us at this point.  We must concentrate all of our firepower on the weaker of the two children of Vader.  By attacking his sister, Luke will come to us to save her and the remnant of her pathetic faction.  As he did, all those years ago, when Vader tormented his friends, Luke Skywalker will not be able to stop himself from rushing into danger to save the day.”

                Then, from somewhere unseen near Snoke, Saydra’s voice is heard.  “But what about the ancient artifacts?  He will undoubtedly escape with them and hide them before confronting us.  The Jedi could yet rise again.”

                Snoke glances off to his left.  “Then we must simply hope that Skywalker will be in too much of a rush to think of that option.  If we attack his sister with everything we have at our disposal…if her plight is so severe that Skywalker has no time to spare…” 

                He then breaks off, turning his attention back to Phasma.  “Order the fleet to pursue.  Forego the invasion of the galaxy for now.  Hold nothing back but the three Star Destroyers here to delay Skywalker’s escape."

                "Meanwhile, we will have the Supremacy meet up with the remainder of the Resistance and Republic fleets at their rendezvous to finish off what is left of them.  This ship alone should be able to handle their pathetic forces."

                "Still, I cannot emphasize this enough.  Make sure that we make it very convincing, Phasma.  The point is that Leia must scream out to her brother for help through the Force.  His sister’s life must be in real constant danger without completely wiping her out of existence...yet.”

                “It shall be done,” says Phasma, and as she rises the scene ends.

                On the surface of Ahch-To, the Falcon is shown resting on a beach on a random island.  Far in the distance, in the sky, the Supremacy can still be seen.  In the cockpit of the Falcon, Rey sits down next to Luke.  You hear Chewie and R2 working somewhere in the back of the ship.  There is a whole lot of banging and sounds of welding.  Rey wipes her hands on a rag.  She is also covered in filth from working on the ship.  “Looks like most of the systems are still functioning.  You are an amazing pilot…just like the legends say.”

                Luke smiles at her, but there is sadness in his eyes.  “Rey,” he says warmly but with an intensity that sobers her up.  “Let me give you your first lesson.”

                Excited, Rey’s eyes brighten.  “Really?  Here?  Now?”

                “Rey,” Luke says softly, but sternly, catching her attention again.  “Listen.  Legends and stories are more destructive than you think.  You have to be careful what you believe.  What you believe is EVERYTHING.  I’m not the hero you think I am.  I’m not what anyone thinks I am.  I had to learn this the hard way.  Don’t follow in my footsteps.  Trust me when I say that the more powerful you become in the Force, the harder it is to see just how much your weaknesses have grown too.”

                “Think about it like this,” Luke continues.  “You are a scavenger, right?”

                Rey nods.  “My whole life.”

                “You’ve learned to rely on the skills you learned on whatever planet you’re from…right?”

                “How did you know I was a scavenger?” asks Rey.

                “The Force,” he answers quickly, waving the question aside as unimportant.  “Now…the more you learn to use the Force, the more you will rely on it.  Suddenly, you may find that those skills you once relied on so heavily…they will start to slowly and subtly weaken.  The more you trust the Force, the more it will replace your natural skills.  The stronger the Force becomes for you, the weaker your skills become.  However, the problem is, you won’t even realize it, if you aren’t careful, until it is too late.”

                Rey looks at him, a quizzical look on her face.  “Can the Force somehow be cut off or something?”

                Luke again meets her gaze with a very serious look.  Then he slowly nods.  “Everything has limits, Rey, except the Force.  It is unlimited.  Therefore, all limited things have a certain, limited perception of the Force, and a certain measure of how much of the Force they can control or allow to pass through them.  There is always a way to destroy all things except the Force…and there are always ways to further increase or decrease all limited things.”

                “It is like a child.  When the child is young, it is weak and helpless.  As the child grows, she becomes stronger.  She increases the boundaries of her abilities.  But…things can always happen to disable her, to reduce her once again even to that small child-like state…to diminish her abilities and reduce her boundaries.”

                “I found out the hard way that I relied on the Force too much.  I didn’t realize I was vulnerable.  I believed in the legends myself…I believed I was invincible.  I made the same mistake Obi-Wan made when training my father.  I believed I could train my nephew…that I could save him from the Dark Side.  I thought I was better than Obi-Wan, better than Yoda, better than my father.  I thought I had risen above them all to such grand heights because I had redeemed my father from the Dark Side.  I had convinced him to kill the Emperor.  I had destroyed the First Death Star with a single shot.  I had faced Jabba the Hutt and won.  I helped bring the Empire to its knees.  I spent decades tracking down every Jedi artifact and tome I could find…and I became 'so wise and knowledgeable.'”

                “And with all that, I also became so proud and arrogant.  I had all these dreams of living well past my years and raising countless generations of Jedi Knights.  I had dreams of helping to guide the galaxy into a new golden age.  No matter what darkness rose against me, I was so confident that I could destroy it.”

                “But when one climbs to such great heights, he neglects to realize just how far he can fall.  He is so busy staring out at the world at his feet…at the horizon…that he forgets “where he was…what he was doing.”  That!...Rey…That is the danger of legends and stories.  They make a person feel far better about themselves than they should…so much so that they forget that they can make mistakes.”

                “And THAT was what led to the Jedi Order’s destruction as well.  They limited the Force by shackling it with rules and regulations.  They created these rules because of fear…the very thing that they preached against.  You see, it was out of fear of the Dark Side that they established so many of their rules.  They feared that if they did not shackle their students with these rules that the Dark Side would consume them.  So they limited the Force.”

                “And it made them stronger, for a time.  It worked…for a time.  But over time the rules became meaningless.  They were obeyed just to obey the rules.  They were obeyed out of fear.  The rules became religion, and it narrowed the perception of the Jedi so that they could not see beyond their religion.  They could not see beyond their strict guidelines.”

                “Thus, they overlooked many truths that were staring them right in the face.  They were so intent on following the formula that they neglected to realize that life cannot be contained by formulas.  Neither can the Force.  It is living.  It is always shifting and changing.”

                “And this is what allowed Palpatine to rise to power right under their noses.  This is why they failed my father and it pushed my father right into Palpatine’s arms.  They did not actually see his pain or perceive what his needs were.  They trusted so much in their formulas that they assumed their teachings were working.  Then, when they discovered they weren’t working, they were confused and didn’t know how to help him come back from the edge of darkness."

                "Simple love and compassion, honesty and truth…taking the time to listen and truly understand what someone is feeling and thinking, THESE are the true ways of the Light Side.  But the Jedi at that time weren't focusing on these things, and so they allowed Palpatine’s war to distract them from what they really needed to focus on…showing the galaxy that there is a better way to handle conflict than war.”

                “Master Yoda had told me, just before he died, “Luke…the last of the Jedi will you be.”  At the time, I thought he had simply meant that it was up to me to ensure the rebirth of the Jedi, for I was the last one.  But no…I understand now that Yoda was prophesying to me that I would literally be the last of the Jedi.  He was telling me that after me, the Jedi would be no more.”

                “But why?  We need the Jedi more now than ever,” says Rey.

                “Because,” says Luke, “the galaxy no longer needs the Jedi.  It needs people who transcend above the Jedi ways.  The galaxy needs someone like you, Rey, not me.”

                “Me?” says Rey, thoroughly stunned.

                “Yes!  You, Rey!” says Luke.  “Don’t you see?  The Force is reaching out to you in a way similar to how it reached out to my father.  When my father was first discovered by Obi-Wan, he was already powerful in the Force because he did not limit it within himself.  Neither do you limit the Force within you, Rey.  You let it flow through you.”

                “But I don’t understand it and I can’t control it,” Rey says, worried.  “I feel something has awakened in me that has always been there, and it frightens me.  I don’t know what to do with it.”  Tears well up within her eyes.  “Are you saying, then, that I should not try to control it…are you saying I should not worry about boundaries or limits…that I should live without rules?”

                Luke smiles and shakes his head.  “Why did the rules initially work for the Jedi?  Why did they make the Jedi stronger?”

                She shakes her head, obviously having no idea.

                “It is because rules help to create structure that you can understand.  Rules help you control your environment so that chaos doesn’t control it…and you.  Don’t misunderstand.  Rules are important.  However, rules are meant to serve people.  People are not meant to serve rules.  We follow rules because they make sense to follow them, because they help us and assist us and guide us.  However, when we lose sight of why we obey those rules, then we enter that area of blindness, that area where we simply obey just to obey.”

                “So that is why I saved the Jedi artifacts and the tomes and everything that you will need to move forward, Rey.  It is so that you can learn from the mistakes of the past and create rules for yourself and all who follow you in the future…rules that are created to serve people and not the other way around.  Understand?”

                “But what about you?” she asks, obviously feeling overwhelmed by what he has just said.  “Where will you be?”

                Luke sighs.  “I am old, Rey.  I can sense my time is coming.  I don’t know how much longer I have to help you.  I’m sorry to throw all this on you, but I have foreseen your coming in the Force, and I know the Force has chosen you to be a bastion of the Light, a paragon of all that is good.  That’s why the lightsaber was calling to you.  Like my father, YOU are chosen by the Force.  There’s nothing really all that special about the lightsaber except that my father had it, it was passed on to me, and now I pass it on to you.  It seems to me that a tradition has begun.  Whoever is the chosen of the Force, that person is to wield this lightsaber.”

                “It may be overwhelming for you, and I feel for you…really I do.  I had the same thing thrown on my shoulders at about your age.  I will certainly stick around as long as I can, but I know the truth.  I must pass on the torch to someone else…to you.”

                Silence then falls between them for a moment.  Then, curious, Rey asks, “What happened between you and Jacen Solo?  How did he fall to the Dark Side?  They said that you blamed yourself.”

                Luke glances at her out of the corner of his eye, reluctant to say.  Then, at last, he replies, “I could sense a power in him like I’ve never felt before in anyone.  It was overwhelming…so much so that those without sensitivity to the Force could feel it.  That’s why Leia and Han were afraid for him.  That’s why they were afraid OF him.  They couldn’t hide it from him either.  He could sense how they felt, and he misunderstood those feelings.  They loved him, but they knew that no matter what, they could not discipline him or control him.”

                “What do you mean?” she asks.

                “Imagine,” says Luke, “that you have a son who is very little.”  As he speaks, an illusion of a small child that looks somewhat like Rey appears.  She is taken aback but also mesmerized by the image.  Luke doesn’t say another word, but the child suddenly runs up and grabs Rey’s blaster, pulling it from its holster.

                “Hey!” says Rey, jumping to her feet.  “Give me that back…I…”

                “No!” the boy snaps at her angrily.  He then laughs.  “Try and make me.”

                Rey glances at Luke who merely looks up at her as if curious to see what she is going to do next.  “How are you doing this?”

                Mirroring Obi-Wan's words, Luke says, “The Force has a strong influence on the weak-minded.”  Then he chuckles at the joke.  “I’m kidding…just kidding.”  He then sighs.  “Rey…are you going to ask me how I’m doing things every time I use the Force?  That’s going to get old real quick.”  Then he glances back at the child.  “Well…what would you do?”

                Rey turns to the child, a bit timid in her response as she tries to sound authoritative.  “Well…um…Give me that.  Now!”

                Luke laughs again.  “That’s not how you reprimand a child.  You’re terrible at that.  Ah, but you've got time.  When you have kids of your own, you'll figure it out.”  Then he turns to the illusion child and he does his best Han Solo impression.  “Hey!  What're you doing?  Give me that before you shoot your face off!”

                The child is taken aback by Luke’s words.  However, he becomes defiant again.  “I can do whatever I want.  Didn't you hear what I said, stupid?  I said, “Try and make me.”’

                “Why you little…” says Luke, jumping to his feet and coming at the boy.  The boy suddenly raises his hands and yells in rage.  Luke flies backwards into the Falcon’s control panel, smashing his head so hard against the viewport that there is a loud, sickening thud.  Rey jumps in fright.  Luke slumps to the floor off of the panel, lying as if dead.  The illusion child vanishes.

                Rey drops to Luke’s side in a panic.  “Master Skywalker!  Are you…”

                Luke’s eyes open and he sits up suddenly.  “There.  See?” he says as if nothing had happened.  “One little temper tantrum and you could be seriously hurt or killed.  So how do you even dream of controlling or disciplining such a child?”

                Rey rises back into her seat, and both she and Luke sit back down opposite one another.  “So Jacen had very few boundaries.  Leia and Han didn’t know how to handle him.  As he grew older, he began to grow stronger in the Force, and his rebelliousness grew with it.  Han couldn’t take it.  He fought a lot with both Jacen and Leia.  Then he left them, unable to handle the stress.  He returned to what he was familiar with; his old smuggling ways."  

                "But Leia was no better; not really.  She focused on being a Senator because that was what she was good at.  It was the only way she could cope.  She convinced herself that the New Republic needed her more than ever, and if she didn't step up and take the lead, especially after Mon Mothma retired, the galaxy would fall apart around them."

                "Meanwhile, Jacen continued to spiral out of control, unchecked, so Leia asked me to train him.”  He sighs then, growing distant.  “I had just forged my academy, and I was so confident that I could handle the responsibility, that I could train him when no one else could.  Of course I could!  I was the Great Luke Skywalker!"  He shook his head sadly.  "I immediately sensed his almost limitless affinity with the Force, and it didn’t frighten me because I was so proud.”  He breaks off, tears choking him.

                “Then…one night…”  As he continues explaining, the scene shifts to show Luke coming to Jacen’s room at night.  “It was as if the blinders had come off.  I came to check on him…”  Luke steps into the room where Jacen is sleeping in his bed.  “…and I could feel all of that power flooding through him and around him, like a black hole, drawing in all things.  He was sleeping, and all at once I felt this intense terror.”  As he describes it, the scene plays out.  “I understood, then, what Han and Leia had felt.  Nothing could stop Jacen, or so it seemed.  If he wanted to, he could destroy us all.”

                “Then I did exactly what Yoda and Obi-Wan and all of the others did to my father.  I saw no hope in Jacen.  I saw only an evil that needed to be eradicated before it was too late.  I believed Jacen was already gone, and unlike my father, I could sense no good in him.”

                “So in a moment of weakness…a weakness I had never knew was in me…I ignited my saber…I moved in to strike him down while he slept.”

                “By the time I came to my senses…it was too late.  Jacen woke to find me hovering over him, and I can only imagine what he must have thought…what he must have felt…the same betrayal that my father had felt all those years ago.  Everyone he'd ever loved had turned against him.  Everyone who meant anything to him had abandoned and betrayed him, because they feared him.  I was frozen with guilt and paralyzed with the shock and horror about the evil I found lurking within myself.  I was so paralyzed…so weak in that moment, that Jacen could have killed me in a moment.  I wouldn’t have stopped him.”

                “Instead…he only lashed out at me in fear and horror.  He used the force to bury me under the room’s ceiling while he, himself, escaped.  By the time I dug myself out, Jacen was gone.  The unthinkable had happened.  The other students at the academy had thought that Jacen had gone completely to the Dark Side…that he had betrayed me and killed me.  They turned on him and tried to kill him as well, in their fear and grief.  Jacen only slaughtered them and burned down the academy because he was defending himself.”

                The scene shifts back to Luke and Rey.  “The pain and guilt and sense of betrayal that he must have felt…I…I will never forgive myself for such a mistake.”  He chokes again.  "And now he’s gone, ensnared by Snoke’s lies just as Anakin had been ensnared by the Emperor…all because of me.  All I did was follow in Old Ben's footsteps.  In the end, in my pride, I failed my only nephew.”

                Another small silence falls between them.  Then Luke turns to Rey again with newfound determination.  “But there IS still good in him, Rey…just as with my father.  There is still hope.  It’s not too late.  We can save him.  He is not the monster you think he is.  In fact, I believe there is even more good in him than there was in my father.  He is still fluctuating between the Dark and the Light.  That's why he is so unstable.  He hasn't yet committed to either.  Even though he has done some terrible things, there is a large part of him that still longs to be loved - to escape the darkness.  He just needs someone to look past his failings and flaws; someone who can see the person he truly is deep down.”

                “But he killed his own father!” Rey says, not fully believing Luke.

                “And my father killed his own mentor, who was like a father to him…and he killed his best friend, my Uncle Owen, when he was searching for the Death Star’s plans.  And he tortured his own daughter…he slaughtered countless Jedi…but there was still hope!  I have to believe he can be turned…even as Vader was.”

                Rey then falls silent, nodding in understanding.  “I guess I will just have to trust you on that.”

                Luke smiles warmly at her.  “Keep your mind and heart always open to love and compassion, Rey.  That is the way of the Light.  When you start to harden your heart because of grief and pain and anger and fear, that is when the Dark Side comes in and tries to rob you of all you love.  That is how it blinds you to the truth.  Hope for the best in everyone, no matter how evil they are.  Don’t get me wrong…guard against them and don’t expose yourself to foolish attacks.  However, never lose hope…never give up.  The Light can always find a way to penetrate even the deepest shadows.  Love is what saved my father.  Love is what drew him back from the Dark Side.  In the end, it was his love for me and my mother that brought Anakin Skywalker back to life.  Love resurrected the dead, and love overcame death and evil.”  Then the scene lingers a moment longer on Rey before it pans away to the next scene.